“As a journalist in a new place, you’ll always notice when things are a little bit off,” says Lahore-born Fazeelat Aslam, who can find the act of vacationing somewhat difficult. “I can’t turn it off—it’s like when a filmmaker watches a film and can see all the cuts and edits.”

What place do you feel a connection with?Mexico City. When I was 12 years old, we went to Frida Kahlo’s house and, as a young Pakistani girl, I noticed a lot of facial hair happening, with the unibrow, the mustache. These were things I was teased horribly about at school, but after seeing Kahlo’s paintings I felt so empowered.

Home rentals or hotels?My husband and I use Airbnb. I do think people need to make more of an effort if they want to have an experience that doesn’t feel like it could be anywhere in the world.

How so?By seeing a place through a local’s perspective. I find that essential to travel. That’s why Anthony Bourdain and Jonathan Gold were so impactful: They didn’t just show different cultures, they showed all classes. This country has far more class stratification than Americans would admit, and travel is certainly a way to remedy that.

What's one way growing up between cultures has impacted your work?Growing up between the very different worlds that are Pakistan and the West, I always felt that I had to do some translation for people because of the lack of understanding that these disparate cultures have a lot more in common than you would think. Pakistan is a country that has serious issues with illiteracy, so early on I realized how important visual cues were to elicit a similar response in a person, regardless of where they're from. It's why I work with film.

What's something you had to learn?To listen. We all go in with our predisposed notions of what a story is—or what we want the story to be. When I was working in Pakistan in my twenties it was always about the Taliban, or gendered violence, or something horrible that some poor person had done to another poor person. As I listened more, I learned that there was a lot of finger pointing happening and not a lot of looking in the mirror, because most of the people doing the correspondent work were coming from a space of privilege. My work now seeks to really look at the harm being done by the upper strata, and what they are doing to force marginalized people into acts of violence and radicalization. When I spoke to these communities, I heard people who are desperate to be seen and desperate to be listened to. People aren't inherently bad or evil, most of the time they're in a situation because they've been forced into it by systemic issues that need far more attention.